From Publishers Weekly
Chabon's long-awaited follow-up to The Mysteries of Pittsburgh concerns the antics of a self-destructive middle-aged novelist who is suffering from a sustained case of writer's block. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Chabon himself is something of a wonder boy; his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, presided on the New York Times Best Sellers list for 12 weeks. Here, his eponymous heroes are Grady, an aging author attempting to write his chef-d'oeuvre, and his randy editor, Tripp.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Publishers Weekly
An impeccably constructed novel that sparkles with inventiveness and wit neatly permeated with rue ... Throughout, Chabon's elegant prose, breathtaking imagery and wickedly on-target dialogue precisely illuminate his characters' absurdities ... Above all, this is a feast for lovers of writing and books.


Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
The young star of American letters ... a writer not only of rare skill and wit but of self-evident and immensely appealing generosity.


Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered, National Public Radio
Wonder Boys caught me up and carried me along like some kind of flying carpet ... Whether making us laugh or making us feel the breathtaking impermanence of things, Michael Chabon keeps us wide awake and reading.


Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times Book Review
{A} beguiling and wickedly smart novel ... There is a first-rate satirical farce in Chabon's novel but essentially it is something rarer: satirical comedy.


From AudioFile
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt. K.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
This is a genuinely funny, laugh-out-loud novel, a sort of Fear and Loathing in Academia if you will, but infused with tenderness and a bracing skepticism about our worship of literature. Chabon is known for his glisteningly precise and graceful prose, but he is also blessed with a wickedly imaginative and energetic sense of humor. His second novel takes place during the course of one extraordinarily hectic weekend during which his crazy hero, Professor Grady Tripp, manages to ruin two marriages, cause the death of a boa constrictor and a dog, save a student's life, attend a disastrous seder and a chaotic writers' conference, and lose the only copy of his manuscript. Now don't groan when I tell you that Wonder Boys is also the title of the novel Tripp has wasted seven years of his disorderly life on, because this is not your typical, bloodless novel-within-a-novel. It is, instead, a simultaneously hilarious and insightful tale about the Faustian bargains writers make, the fissures the act of writing rends in the wall between fact and fantasy, and, for good measure, the basic absurdity of human endeavors. It's also an uproarious portrait of the artist as self-indulgent fool. Tripp's "wonder boys" are, like Chabon, young writers who achieve instant success. The trick, then, is to maintain it. Whereas his endearingly addled and irresistible hero fails, Chabon, for all his musing on the dark side of the writer's life, is succeeding brilliantly. Donna Seaman


Review
"The young star of American letters . . . a writer not only of rare skill and wit but of self-evident and immensely appealing generosity."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

"A beguiling and wickedly smart novel."—Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Filled with memorable lines and wonderful images."—Robert Ward, The New York Times Book Review



Review
"The young star of American letters . . . a writer not only of rare skill and wit but of self-evident and immensely appealing generosity."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

"A beguiling and wickedly smart novel."—Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Filled with memorable lines and wonderful images."—Robert Ward, The New York Times Book Review



Book Description
Grady Tripp is a pot-smoking middle aged novelist who has stalled on a 2611 page opus titled Wonder Boys. His student James Leer is a troubled young writer obsessed by Hollywood suicides and at work on his own first novel. Grady's bizarre editor Terry Crabtree and another student, Hannah Green, come together in his wildly comic, moving, and finally profound search for an ending to his book and a purpose to his life.



About the Author
Michael Chabon is the author of the novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and two story collections, including Werewolves in Their Youth. He lives with his family in the Bay Area, California.

ANNOTATION

In his first novel since The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon presents a hilarious and heartbreaking work--the story of the friendship between the eponymous "wonder boys"--Grady, an aging writer who has lost his way, and Tripp, whose relentless debauchery is capsizing his career.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Wonder Boys we meet James Leer, a troubled young "wonder boy" whose obsession with Hollywood suicides leads him to commit a pair of startling crimes. Thereby his destiny becomes entangled with that of his writing teacher, Grady Tripp, a former prodigy whose penchant for self-destruction is exceeded only by the twenty-six hundred pages of his unfinished magnum opus, Wonder Boys - a leviathan of a novel that is devouring his life. Joined by Terry Crabtree, Grady's editor - another onetime boy wonder whose appetite for the bizarre has derailed a promising career - teacher and student set out across a mysterious nighttime landscape to search for a vision of redemption, a shot at literary fame, and the threadbare black satin jacket in which Marilyn Monroe wed Joe DiMaggio.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Mixing comic-even slapstick-events with the serious theme of bright promise gone awry, Chabon has produced an impeccably constructed novel that sparkles with inventiveness and wit neatly permeated with rue. The once-promising eponymous ``wonder boys'' are Grady Tripp and Terry Crabtree, friends since college, where they both determined to make their mark in literature. Now they are self-destructive adults whose rare meetings occasion an eruption of zany events. Narrator Grady, a professor/novelist whose unfinished work-in-progress, Wonder Boys, stands at 2000-plus endlessly revised pages, has destroyed three marriages through compulsive philandering and a marijuana habit. Terry is a devil-may-care, sexually predatory editor who has patiently endured Grady's writing block but who tells Grady, when he arrives at the annual literary conference at Grady's small Pittsburgh college, that he expects to be fired momentarily from his job. Grady and Terry, later joined by the campus's newest potential ``wonder boy,'' a talented but mendacious student named James Leer, set in motion a series of darkly funny misadventures. Farcical scenes arise credibly out of multiplying contretemps, culminating in a stoned Grady's wild ride in a stolen car in whose trunk rest a tuba and the corpses of a blind dog and a boa constrictor. All of this affords Chabon a solid platform for some freewheeling satire about the yearnings, delusions and foibles of writers and other folk. Throughout, his elegant prose, breathtaking imagery and wickedly on-target dialogue precisely illuminate his characters' gentle absurdities. The pace of this vastly entertaining novel never abates for a second, as we watch Grady slide inexorably into emotional and professional chaos. Above all, though, this is a feast for lovers of writing and books, with the author's fierce understanding of what Grady calls ``the midnight disease,'' the irresistible, destructive urge of a writer to experience his characters' fates. Author tour. (Mar.)

Library Journal

Chabon himself is something of a wonder boy; his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, presided on the New York Times Best Sellers list for 12 weeks. Here, his eponymous heroes are Grady, an aging author attempting to write his chef-d'oeuvre, and his randy editor, Tripp.

AudioFile - Katherine A. Powers

American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp￯﾿ﾽs awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it￯﾿ﾽs balanced by Chabon￯﾿ﾽs superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers￯﾿ﾽ conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that￯﾿ﾽs not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp￯﾿ﾽs personal gestalt. K.A.P. ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine

Shelby Hearon - Chicago Tribune

[A] wise, wildly funny story￯﾿ﾽChabon is a flat—out wonderful writer—evocative and inventive, pointed and poignant.

Richard Eder - Los Angeles Times Book Review